HEROICS II
continues Paul's reflection on the self-aggrandizement and adornment by men, of men, in classical art, their heroics down the centuries since the Renaissance being depicted more often as naked godlike sensual fantasies than the brutal acts of mean and ugly men that they often were. From the moment a more naturalistic human form began to appear on canvas and in marble during the Italian Renaissance, men were glorified with epic and fleshy muscularity, performing momentous and miraculous feats whilst scantily clad and militarily adorned, apparently oblivious to any danger to their physical ( and very exposed) selves. As with the first HEROICS this book seeks to comment on society's discomfiture over the naked male in real life, by drawing our attention to the almost blasé acceptance of the very public frontal male nudity in the heroic art all around us in the everyday downtowns of our great cities.... By using contemporary male nakedness in heroic attire and attitude, in a mixture of post modernistic and contemporary settings, Freeman relates his portraits to the public art which he opens the book with, then mixes in an ample splash of whimsy that entertains with each twist and classical turn of the page.
Heroics II is a collection of over one hundred and eighty fine art nude photographic portraits of men captured in the classical tradition of mythologised heroism, and the sometimes grandiose and dramatic poses that entailed, and shot in an array of contemporary, post-modernist, neo-classic and painterly environments, in both colour and warm toned black and white, reminiscent of the influences being evoked and in the tradition of fine art film photography.